The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies is hiring three postdoctoral researchers. We investigate the causes and mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of strong asymmetrical dependencies across historical and contemporary contexts. Pre-modern perspectives are very welcome!

To my mind, some of the absolute best scholarship in art history appears in edited volumes--venues where high quality images can be reproduced and (often) words counts are less restrictive in either the minimum or maximum direction. It's such a shame that these volumes often fly under the radar.

Interested in letter-writing in early medieval Britain? A three-year postdoc on @francescatinti.bsky.social’s and my project is now available. Apps close on 17th Oct. Let me know if you have any questions and please circulate! 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Warsaw Late Antique seminar on 2 October: Jakub Urbanik (UW) D. I 3.37 / P. Oxy. LXXXV 5495 – Consuetudo Strikes Back. In person and online. For the full programme see: lateantiqueseminar.historia.uw.edu.pl

“En misschien zit juist in die lappendeken van kleine coalities de echte Europese kracht.” uitstekend punt dat Steven Everts hier maakt: www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Colloque – Pax Normanna. Pendant et après la conquête : gouverner la pluralité rmblf.be/2025/09/30/c...

Publication – Patrick J. Geary, « Comment la génétique réécrit l’histoire du Moyen Âge » rmblf.be/2025/09/30/p...

I, Rowboat: Mechanical Propulsion and Individual Agency in the Viking Era North Atlantic #FakePaperTitles

Starting a new thread to collect critical perspectives on AI, as they are articulated dozens of times every day and appear repeatedly on my timeline. I can't read everything right away, but if, like me, you want to stay up to date, then this might help a bit:

Weekend observation prompted by the kids' playlist: Owl City's "Fireflies" (you know, that song that drove us all up the walls back in 2009) is kinda good, actually.

"Can I call you back? I'm stuck in an O at the moment." St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 711; Abbreviatio Decreti "Quoniam egestas"; second half of the 12th century; p.18 (e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)

Absolutely unacceptable behaviour from a publisher. Gross.

¡No Pasarán!

Alt text: a journal submission form with a mandatory tickbox. Text alongside the box reads: I agree that Wiley can utilize the submission to improve Al services for submission, screening, and peer review whether the manuscript is accepted or rejected for publication.

Medievalists should use '-esque' more often to denote stuff. The empire is not Carolingian but Carolingesque. The conquest was not Norman but Normanesque. The rule is not monastic but monastesque. Less precision, more accuracy I say.

This is a problem.

Publication – « The Politics of Interpretation: The Bible and the Formation of Legal Authority in the Early Middle Ages », éd. Gerda Heydemann, Rosamond McKitterick rmblf.be/2025/09/25/p...

“I use it for brainstorming.” is quickly becoming my most hated pro-AI statement. YOU TOOK YOUR BRAIN OUT OF THE EQUATION. THAT IS NOT BRAINSTORMING.

Annual Challenge to make me a moderator of a panel you're organizing for the #IMC2026 and not actually tell me about this.

Caught myself thinking for a moment that the 11th century might actually be more fun than the 9th century but then I remembered that time periods have no inherent qualities. Phew.

if you're interested, you can read it (for free!) in this new open access book, ed. Christoph Haack, Annette Grabowsky and Steffen Patzold www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/afte...

My first article written during my PhD is out with NordEuropaForum 🥳 it's based on a page or so of my MA Thesis written while in Utrecht 😊 edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/d1dfc7...

Offre d’emploi – Research Associate – MOWLIT: The Medieval March of Wales rmblf.be/2025/09/23/o...

You can’t fix autism because autistic people are not broken.

LSU opening. jobs.chronicle.com/job/37889510...

Colloque – Innover pour gouverner ? L’innovation diplomatique dans les chartes impériales, royales et princières du Moyen Âge rmblf.be/2025/09/22/c...

Offre d’emploi – Assistant Professor in Histories of the Islamicate World (Medieval/Early Modern) rmblf.be/2025/09/22/o...

Hypothesis: if you can fully explain what's going on in this scene, you can also explain what, say, Froissart or Nithard or pseudo-Turpin are all about. Discuss (?) youtu.be/RH0zWG3Crzs?...

Now on display at the National museum in Oslo.

🧵 I don’t write about illustrators too much, but want to bring you the Norwegian Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914), who died on this day. I love how he created images of Norwegian mythology & tales that are as attractive today as when they were created. Watch out for trolls! [1]

This is a very long shot but does anyone know anything about the waterproof/water resistant qualities of silk, or treatments to make silk waterproof in the early 20th century? (perhaps including a very tight weave, or coating it somehow?) Got a source? TIA! #academicSky #TextileHashtagWhatIs

£77,816 er annum. What an exciting post.

Next week, students in my medieval survey course @viuniversity.bsky.social will be discussing Katherine Allen Smith’s fantastic article “Why did medieval monks sew?” If you haven’t read it yet, you should. It’s superb.

Just deleted my academia.edu account after 17 (!) years -- the company's exploitative new terms of use are outrageous, and it's a shame such a blatant commercial sell-out is able to operate under the .edu top-level domain. If you are still on academia.edu, please consider deleting your account too.

There. Finally gone from Academia Dot E D U. Took me a while tho.

First post of the new academic year and it's a good one: JOBS! There are THREE fixed-term research jobs in @kingshistory.bsky.social attached to my colleague Francisco Bethencourt's new ERC project on the Visual and Material Culture of New Christians. Please circulate! #EarlyModern 🗃️

Ah, yes. Full support! As @ewg118.bsky.social and I have said for almost a decade. www.forbes.com/sites/drsara...

Full Professorship in Book History at Rutgers www.higheredjobs.com/search/detai...

For today's class on 'authorship' I compiled a little playlist of songs called 'Authority' and interestingly the title seems to be most popular amongst both punk bands AND Christian pop acts.

Come work with me! The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences is looking for a new Research Coordinator with a specialism in collaborative grants. 1. Knowledge of Swedish meritorious but not required. 2. We also have humanities and social sciences researchers www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

In other news, I missed Tom Hardy Kat Day but it's never too late to celebrate so ... let's! It's friggin' wholesome content is what it is. pictures-of-cats.org/tom-hardy-fo...

"The lion who is afraid of the naked man". Illustration with Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'Amour in Paris Bnf fra. 25566 (c. 1300)

A fabulous looking new book from Tonicha Upham exploring all the Arabic and Persian evidence on Rus burials and sacrifices, complete with translations! #medievalsky #vikings www.cambridge.org/core/element...

We don't live in a post-modern era, but a post-modem era.

News from Finland. A 9-year-old lost an especially good stick he’d had since he was 2. He hung up 20 posters. A few days later it was returned. It had been found by a 2-year-old, who wanted to keep it for herself, but her mother made her return it. She got toys, flowers and candy as a reward.

Hi #Medievalsky, Michaela and I have decided to put together a last minute #IMC2026 session proposal: *Dead Reckoning in the early medieval [?world]" If you've anything on interactions with the dead (literary, historical, legal, etc.) and are looking for an (unfunded) session to join, let us know!

arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 A 200+ page research paper from the University of Warwick, led by Nataliya Kosmyna (et al) This was published a couple months ago but I've only just had the chance to read it. I highly encourage others to do the same but I wanted to condense some observations in a short 🧵

Cover design for a new edition due out from OUP in Feb ‘26

Finally, Christopher White (hey, that's me!) discusses some eleventh century ghost stories from Thietmar of Merseburg's Chronicon, in "The ghosts of our ancestors: Reading religious anxieties in the ghost stories of Thietmar of Merseburg": search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/...

The fourth article here is actually the third in the journal (slight mix up on my part!) in "Gildas and the 'Age of Arthur'", Stephen Joyce writes about the role of King Arthur in Gildas's views of kingship and England: search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/...